Lucic shows how emotionally invested he is in FlamesBack to video

“I think (including) pre-season, I fought seven times in 15 games, just to kind of establish myself and show I could hang around,” the Calgary Flames forward said on Friday, a relatively quiet day at the Scotiabank Saddledome — the calm before the storm of Saturday’s home opener against the Vancouver Canucks.

Emotionally invested is when the 31-year-old is at his best: when he skated with the Vancouver Giants in the Western Hockey League, when he won a Stanley Cup with the Bruins in 2010, his brief stint with the Lost Angeles Kings and in three seasons with the Edmonton Oilers.

And with the Flames in Thursday’s season opener against the Colorado Avalanche, it took exactly two periods to find the right time and place to show just how emotionally invested Lucic is in this 2019-20 group.

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Austin Czarnik had just been levelled in the corner by Avalanche defenceman Nikita Zadorov which prompted Lucic to come to the defence of his teammate. While Zadorov looked to the referee to protest what was set to be an ensuing boarding penalty, Lucic gave him a few shoves and then one hard right hook, before a brief wrestling match occurred.

It was just enough of an altercation to add a little jump in the team’s step. Although they wound up losing the game 5-3, it illustrated the type of impact Lucic can have and resonated with the entire team.

In total, he racked up 17 penalty minutes at Denver’s Pepsi Center. To put things into perspective, there were seven of his new teammates who didn’t have 17 penalty minutes in the entire 2018-19 campaign.

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“The momentum in the rest of the game completely shifted,” said Flames forward Matthew Tkachuk. “It’s one of the elements he can bring, along with his physical play and his play around the net, his size. He brings that extra stuff that we’ve never had (on the team) … he gives you room out there, it’s true. He’s not fun to play against, I know that from playing against him for three years. It’s very important, what he did last game was great.”

It’s not something Lucic visualizes the night before, or while waiting for his next shift on the bench. It’s not an orchestrated, premeditated course of action.

But if the moment strikes …

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“I was never one of those guys that was shaking (due to adrenalin over fighting),” Lucic said. “You watch that movie the ‘Enforcer.’ Those guys, some of them, would say they would throw up because they had so much anxiety because they knew who they were going to fight or knew that they were going to fight. But, for me, I was prepared to do it no matter what. I went into every game, thinking I was going to get into a fight.

“You kind of react to how the game going. Sometimes if it’s stale, you initiate to try and get it going. That’s kind of been my mindset.”

Coincidentally, it’s also been his mindset with every first game of every team he’s been on in his National Hockey League career — he’s logged a five-minute major for fighting in all four of his team debuts:

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Oct. 5, 2007 at Dallas — Off the faceoff early in the second period, the Boston Bruins rookie drops the gloves with Brad Winchester, listed at six-foot-five, 225 pounds: “One of the cool parts of that game was I remember looking over and Mike Modano’s hair was flowing in the warm-ups. It wasn’t a lot of ice time back then. Back then, a lot of teams weren’t playing fourth line, so you kind wanted to do what you could to stay especially with the nine-game rule as a 19-year-old.”

Oct. 7, 2015 vs. San Jose — His first game as a member of the Los Angeles Kings sees Lucic make a statement at home, after getting rocked in the neutral zone by Logan Couture. “He kind of flipped me coming out of the (penalty box) and I went after him right away, to say to him — and everyone — that I’m not going to take that kind of stuff. The same type of thing. You’re showing yourself and, most of all, showing your teammates, and it goes a long way.”

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Oct. 12, 2016 vs. Calgary Flames — Edmonton versus Calgary. Lucic goes up against Deryk Engelland from the Flames, who were losing 3-1 in the first period. “Engelland wanted to fight to get back in it,” Lucic described. “I kind of went in the corner and I was like, ‘OK.’ It was one of those things where you’re trying to get your own jitters out — a new team, a new building. Battle of Alberta. Sometimes it’s the way to get your own personal jitters out is to get in a fight.”

Lucic described it like being a goal scorer who is suffering a drought: all you need is one goal to get you back into it. Same goes for being a physical presence, which has been a big part of his game his entire career. He’s learned how to manage it, too, and play in a way that he doesn’t suffer injury like he did early on in his career.

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“If you look at my first seasons: I missed five games my first year, 10 games my second year, and 32 my third year,” he said. “I can’t be so out of control. I think I had three diagnosed concussions in my first two years. I haven’t had one since because you’re not running around like a chicken with your head cut off like I was when I was a young guy … you kind of have to manage it or you’re going to be on the IR all the time.”

It’s an element that he admits he lost in the latter half of his tenure with the Oilers — and an element he wanted to resurrect in the off-season.

Following the trade to Calgary, Lucic had a conversation with Flames legend Jarome Iginla about that same passion, one that the former Calgary captain displayed on many occasions at the Scotiabank Saddledome.

“When I was talking to Jarome,” Lucic said. “He called me about the trade coming to Calgary. He said, at my age, being on a good team that’s trying to contend, playing meaningful games on a night-to-night basis, those are the type of things as you get older that keeps you energized. It keeps you playing like you did when you were 20, 21, 22.

“Being on a team that’s trying to win a Cup, you’re staying fired up on a day-to-day basis.”

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